


In Defence of Dumbledore's Army

by EverythingisBlue



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: (for some), (sort of), Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Dumbledore's Army, Everyone is Significantly Gayer, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Happy Ending, Harry Potter Next Generation, Headcanons Abound!, Hurt/Comfort, I Tried, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Jewish Character, LGBTQ Character, M/M, Male Character of Color, Minor Character(s), Muggle/Wizard Relations, Multi, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Hogwarts, Rita Skeeter is the Wizarding Equivalent of Piers Morgan, Significant Increase in Scots, This Fic has a Very Complex relationship with Canon, What They Did Next, Wizarding Wars, Wizarding World, again more or less, as does its author lol, because i haven't planned, do you think there's a wizarding version of eurovision, should be a tag put on everything, should i write a wizarding version of eurovision, there i said it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-19
Updated: 2016-11-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 19:45:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,395
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7814707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EverythingisBlue/pseuds/EverythingisBlue
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From the author of “The Daily Prophet: in the Ministry’s Pocket” and “A History of the Order of the Phoenix”, and the editor of “We Shall Rise: The Story of the Aftermath of May 2nd”, comes a passion project a decade in the making: a comprehensive history of Dumbledore’s Army, and a reunion of two twin forces in wizarding non-fiction. The Carrows’ dedication to absolute truth is crystal clear in their latest work, which also serves as a rebuttal to Rita Skeeter’s 2014 biography, “Dumbledore's Army: The Dark Side of the Demob”.<br/>Yet it is more than just a counter-argument. It is an exploration of the young people behind one of our most powerful resistance groups, with exclusive information provided by the members themselves. Almost an entire wizarding generation was shaped by their relation to the Second Wizarding War – the DA were a testament to not letting fear and hatred define them. They questioned what few others did, they were loyal to those many abandoned, and they were brave in the face of death. To ask them to be perfect is ungrateful, to judge them is cruel.<br/></p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Introduction

Hestia Carrow was born 1983, approximately 13 minutes before her twin Flora. She achieved 9 OWLs and 7 NEWTs during her time at Hogwarts, including an Outstanding in History of Magic, and was a member of the prestigious Slug Club. Since leaving Hogwarts, she and her sister have become outspoken critics of both the media and the government, as well as leading lights in the world of wizarding writing. They are the founders of The Free Wizard Press, a publishing house and advocacy group focused upon press freedoms within Wizarding Britain. As a writer, her bibliography spans from biographies of previously unexplored Hogwarts headmasters to examinations of the complexities of modern wizarding Britain. She lives in central London with her two cats, Athena and Artemis.

 

Flora Carrow is the younger of the twins. During her time at Hogwarts, she earned 9 OWLs and 7 NEWTs and was a member of the Slug Club. Along with her sister, she is an advocate for greater press freedom and transparency in Britain, as well as across the world, and routinely counters those she believes are wrong through her work at the Free Wizard Press. In her career as an editor, she has consulted upon numerous novels, projects, and articles. She lives in south London with her wife, the poet Kiri Roa Ngata, and their daughter Calliope.

 

* * *

 

 

We had planned to write this book for as long as we knew we wanted to write. Or rather, for as long as there has been a Dumbledore’s Army. But the circumstances of getting there were more complex than we had imagined. Initially, the desired release date was 2015, to coincide with the date of its’ original founding, and both Flora and I prepared for that. We had, to the best of our abilities, compiled all of our information and composed at least four different drafts of what our final product. 

Then, four years ago, a book-cum-exposé was published: “Dumbledore's Army: The Dark Side of the Demob”, by Rita Skeeter. At time of print, it proved a controversial and divisive tome, and still does to this day. The questions it raised have yet to be well and truly answered – Should we hold these imperfect beings above the masses? What does the imperfection of our heroes say about us? Why do we need our heroes to be perfect? Isn’t it enough that they’re human? In fact, isn’t it better that they are?

To my sister and I, it is. The inherent humanity in Dumbledore’s Army is the reason we are all free. Free to write what we do, to publish dazzlingly ignorant exposés, and to criticise them. Free to attend school. Free to be a Muggleborn, half-blood, pure-blood, without caring. Free to practice magic and live in the world we do; however imperfect we might think it is. We are free because of the Order and Dumbledore’s Army.

There are valid criticisms to be made about the DA, but they are not to be directed at the members themselves. They should be directed at figures of authority at the time. It is no secret that the handling of Voldemort’s return was inadequate, but few connect it to the DA. The Ministry left these children with no option, no defence. Yet when the time came, they had people to fight for them. In effect, it created child soldiers for itself, and then allowed an employee to besmirch them years later. Even if the Prophet claimed their views do not represent them, having her on staff indicates that they endorse her in some way. They continue to give her a mouthpiece.

In her book, Skeeter argues that there are so many reasons to criticise the DA rather than idolise them. Be it the foibles of youth or honest mistakes, or even the basest, most unfounded conspiracies, they are more devils than angels. Of course, it is not on par with “The Muggle Conspiracy” in terms of poor taste. There is also, admittedly, something about Skeeter's ability to uncover some hidden truth in her writing. In a better writer, it would be a much desired trait. As would her ability to apply this technique to whomever she sees fit. Everything is questioned, leaving nothing uncovered. Everything you know and love is forfeit. Nothing is sacred.

As much as we agree, that we should question our heroes, not everything you know and love should be forfeit. After all, it is particularly galling to hear criticism levelled due to mistakes made in their youth. Of course they were not perfect: they were teenagers. They were growing, discovering their identities, becoming people. And they became better people than some Hogwarts alumni.

It is also contentious when she takes deeply personal tragedies and uses them as ammunition. Miscarriages, deaths, mental illnesses, family breakdowns, sexualities that aren’t ‘acceptable’, phases that don’t sit well with her sensibilities – in the vein of nothing is sacred, neither is the child one lost. From our point of view, that is horrendous. That is where we cannot stay silent.

It is our intention that this book be as accurate as humanly possible, but that we treat our facts with the utmost respect. In addition to the wealth of information already surrounding the Second Wizarding War, our sources are our years in Hogwarts. Flora and I grew up alongside members of Dumbledore’s Army. Far from clouding our judgement, this perspective has given us a privileged insight into the lives of these perfectly ordinary heroes.

Our sources are also the members themselves, who have taken the time to speak with us over the years. The information they have provided is vital, so much so that the basis of our argument rests upon their shoulders. We are confident it is safe there. Flora and I would lastly like to dedicate this book to Dumbledore’s Army, the Order, and to those who lost their lives at their side. Their sacrifice will never be forgotten.


	2. Hannah Abbott

Hannah Abbott was born 1980 in Chesterfield. The Abbott family, a middling wizarding family with roots in the county, could trace their wizarding roots back to the 14th century. The legend is – as Abbott tells me – that a friar at Derby Cathedral went his whole life as an undetected wizard, in an age where witchcraft was punishable by death. He rose higher and higher in rank until made abbot somewhat late in life. In spite of being a holy man, for whom sex would be forbidden, he had a large family, and magical and non-magical descendants alike.

It has been suggested that such origins have bearing on Hannah herself. That the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. It couldn’t be further from the truth. When she welcomed me into her home, she did so with the warmest of smiles, as if greeting an old friend. A roaring fire beats off the winter cold, the smell of butterbeer mingled with wood smoke, and Alice, her young daughter with Neville Longbottom, tinkers with the Weasleys’ newest prank in the next room. Once sat with a cup of tea in their comfiest chair, I begin to delve into her years at Hogwarts.

In 1991, she was the first to be sorted. Her house was Hufflepuff, as was tradition for the Abbotts. But in addition to being tradition, it made sense for her. The outgoing young girl had made around six new friends already and would swiftly go on to make more - including her housemates Susan Bones, Ernie Macmillan, and Justin Finch-Fletchley. What followed were fairly uneventful years, with the occasional Potter-influenced madness here and there.

“I was focused more on my studies, and my friends, than current affairs,” she admits. She remembers that Ernie Macmillan took her to the Yule Ball, that she and all her housemates returned to their dorms laughing, and adds that “compared to what came next, it all seems so far away.”

At the end of her fourth year, Voldemort returned, taking the life of housemate Cedric Diggory in the process.

“That was the moment I began to feel real fear, but ever so slightly. I pushed it down and tried to carry on.”

When the DA first formed, she was more than eager to join. She itched to.

“I just knew that I had to. It was the right thing to do, after all.”

She attended every lesson and fought at almost every opportunity, even the Battle of the Astronomy Tower. Strangely, she never ceased to be upbeat.

“I had hope that things would only get better. The worse they got, the more I was convinced that this was the worst of it. This … stopped when my mother died.”

Grace Abbott was killed in late August of 1997 on her way home from work. She came from a long line of small village Muggles, yet she was a witch and a Ministry employee. She was also vocal critic of Voldemort and the factors that led to his rise. Moreover, the Ministry’s denial of his return galled her. She wrote many a report, public and private, objecting to such a bungling.

Her death tore Hannah apart, to the point that even today she can’t talk about it at length. What she does tell me is that she and Susan Bones, still reeling from the death of her own aunt, huddled together in the Hufflepuff dorms. They were without housemates – Finch-Fletchley among countless other Muggleborns -  and many felt an uncharacteristic sense of dread.

“I worried for my dad back home most of all. We wrote to each other each day – stupid little things, really – but I-I kept every letter.”

At this point in the school year, the DA had not yet reformed. Within weeks, this would begin to change.

“Within the first week, watching them torture first years and anyone who dared to talk back, I knew we had to do something. And I knew I wasn't the only one.”

Abbott played a vital role in recruiting Hufflepuffs - and in teaching them. “There were some who were too afraid to leave their dorms in the evening, so I taught them privately. It wasn't easy, especially when you’d teach someone something one week and see them gone by the next.”

Nonetheless, she persevered. The hope she had once felt began to return. It was rewarded when, having fought the Battle of Hogwarts, she saw Voldemort killed.

“I was so relieved. So tired, of course - I can’t remember how many Death Eaters I duelled, they all merged into one by the end, all I was trying to do was stay alive.”

Abbott returned to retake her NEWTs and then met and married Neville Longbottom in his hometown in early 2000. But this isn’t entirely new information to many. Most of us are familiar with the grinning face of the Leaky Cauldron’s landlady. Unfortunately, we’re also aware of the myriad rumours surrounding her and her husband. It’s not gone unnoticed that in her writing, Skeeter spends a lot of time and effort “divulging truths” about the Longbottoms.

With the exception of the Potters themselves, Neville and Hannah have endured much from Skeeter. First came the column “Sordid Secrets of the Staff”, in which she details that then-incoming Hogwarts Professor Susan Bones and Hannah had had affairs, supposedly stretching from their last year at Hogwarts up until the present day. Skeeter maintains that they continue. But Hannah?

“It is utterly ridiculous!” She asserts. “I will admit, we had something when we were young. But it never went past sixth year.”

(Bones herself corroborates this).

Continuing her campaign, Skeeter skewered the Longbottoms for their supposed inability to have children. “It is hardly surprising,” she wrote. “That in six years of marriage they lost as many babies. Tragic, yes, but not unlikely given their reliance upon firewhiskey.”

Recalling this nearly brings her to tears. “Those years were the hardest in my life. We’d wanted so badly for our own little one that Alice was a blessing.” But even then, she wasn’t enough. Skeeter built upon these accusations with the suggestion that Alice has another father. Old friend Ernie Macmillan is supposed to have stepped in for Longbottom, something that Hannah again shoots down.

“It's bizarre! Everyone knows Ernie has Terry, and he doesn’t even want children!”

A committed relationship aside, the claim also is groundless for another, more poignant reason. It’s near impossible to claim Alice is neither Neville’s nor Hannah’s. In her face, you see the soft swell of Neville’s smile, the gleam in Hannah’s eyes. In her name is both grandmothers – Alice and Grace. Alice is their child, no more and no less.

Hannah Abbott lost her mother to Voldemort and her dignity and privacy to Skeeter’s scheming. But she was defiant throughout all of it - and continues to be, in her happiness and her kindness. Later this year, she will qualify as a healer, and return to Hogwarts. There, she will continue to do the same thing she has done for years: be full of hope.


	3. Katie Bell

Katie Bell has tried to dodge the spotlight ever since she left Hogwarts. Her heart, however, just wouldn’t let her. According to her, it wanted to join the Holyhead Harpies, be their Chaser, pursue Quidditch as far as possible.

“It had to be,” she tells me. “It had to. That’s the way things are with me.”

Katie’s love of Quidditch has more or less defined her life. As a child, her mother often took her to games and encouraged her support for her native Cyprus. Even when they were knocked in the qualifying stages of the 2014 World Cup, she was there to see it happen.

Like Quidditch, the DA called out to her. She had to be there. As with so many of her companions, it was an urge she had to follow, an itch she had to scratch. Beyond ideology, it was impulse.

“I _did_ believe it in, so many of us did, but for me it was instinctual.”

When I ask if she says she was ever seeking glory, she smiles, shrugs it off.

“Probably not,” she says. When I remind that seeking glory is what Gryffindors do, despite themselves, she reminds me Slytherins do the same.

It was that way at Hogwarts too. In the 1990s, the rivalry between Gryffindor and Slytherin peaked - it mutated beyond simple childhood bickering and into a representation of the larger conflict of the Second Wizarding War - and Katie came of age within it. As such, a little bit of friendly rivalry remains when I talk to her. I can’t help it, and neither can she. Though she has greater reason for it - in her third, fourth, and fifth years, she was Gryffindor’s best Chaser. She’s proud of her house, even today - but she no longer distrusts Slytherins.

“It wouldn’t make sense to,” she tells me as I sit in her office at the Holyhead Harpies’ stadium. “Why would I blame the many for the mistakes of the few?”

I mull this over, surrounded by trophies and certificates and so many photographs. On the walls are years and years of Harpies history – including the famous Gwenog Jones and Ginny Weasley – but the ones on her desk fascinate me more. I understand having a picture of her wife, but the picture of the DA strikes me more. When I ask about it, she simply smiles.

“We went through so much together, and I wanted to keep them there to remind me of that. And they were there for me during my seventh year. I couldn’t not remember them.”

In her seventh year, she handled a cursed locket meant for Dumbledore. Although she does not remember the specifics, she remembers the pain. A pain that, according to her, “ripped through every muscle in my body.” The effects of the locket led to her hospitalisation and a recovery of six months – after which, she was still significantly weaker. Her recovery forced her to repeat the year, meaning she joined the reformed DA. But even then, there were days she couldn’t fight. The experience still has an effect on her. There are images she can’t explain cropping up in the back of her mind, actions she doesn’t remember taking, words that taste different in her mouth.

This continued into her Quidditch career, where she would sit out numerous matches because of its’ hold on her. It is the reason she retired so young.

However, it didn’t stop her career entirely. When she did play, the Harpies won. Her success rate, of around 99% percent, makes her perhaps the highest scoring Chaser in their history. Naturally, under the tutelage of Gwenog Jones, she translated her playing success into managing. As of writing, she is the most decorated manager to date. Not bad for someone who once wished to fade away.

Sadly, this notoriety has its’ bad side. Namely, Rita Skeeter is rather preoccupied with the Harpies’ “queer” status. The Harpies are widely considered to be lesbian icons in the wizarding community – so much so that Skeeter speculated Ginny Weasley’s ‘batting for the other team’ when she was signed – and are proud of it.

But Bell has become a special interest of hers as of late. Though not overtly homophobic in her writing, she often hypothesises that Bell’s achievements come not from hard work but from a fear by Quidditch associations of being seen as bigoted. She cherry-picks her evidence for the case as well. For example, ‘Bell’ is an Anglicization of ‘Bilitis’, her family’s Greek surname. It is also the name of a Muggle courtesan, who supposedly spent time with Sappho and was the subject of a book of poetry by Pierre Louÿs. She leant her name to the Daughters of Bilitis, the first Muggle lesbian advocacy group. With this information, Skeeter’s aim seems to be to paint Bell as a sort of lesbian dominatrix, something that makes Bell herself laugh.

“If that’s what she’s into, I won’t stop her.”

Bell is rightly proud of being a lesbian. As many know, Bell frequently appears at Wizarding Pride – and the occasional Muggle Pride – either as a plain clothed reveller or atop the Holyhead Harpies float. Her appearance there is a staple of Pride, marked by the Harpies’ gold and green ribbons and impressive cawing mascot. She is also fiercely in love with her wife, Leanne.

Their relationship began in earnest in her seventh year, Leanne’s sixth, though Bell admits to being interested beforehand. In her seventh year, Leanne followed her into the DA. Her family also let Katie stay over for Christmas of 1997, while her parents were out of the country – her father’s Muggle-born heritage meaning they returned to Cyprus, having left a war there in 1974.

The two women are inseparable. Though they’ve only recently married, Leanne has been cheering Katie at matches for almost 30 years. Neither has any plans to adopt or carry children – much to the disappointment of both sets of parents. “They want grandchildren, but I want to stay sane and vomit stain free.”

The war hasn’t left Katie completely. After all, she is one of its’ first real victims – and the side effects of her possession still linger. But the bond that Dumbledore’s Army forged stays with her as well. Their continued support is one of the things that has kept her going – maybe they are the reason she so often finds herself in the spotlight. Perhaps, it has made her the great success she is.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> OK so two things - I changed Katie Bell a bit because i'm not cool with how everyone in hp is just vaguely English, and chose Greek-Cypriot because that's the same ancestry as her actress; and the Holyhead Harpies being lesbian wizarding icons is from tumblr and is just the best headcanon I mean come on.


	4. Susan Bones

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [etta james voice] at laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaast

As we knew her, Susan Bones was a friend to all. She smiled at everyone in the corridors, held hands with Slytherin and Gryffindor alike at the tensest of times, and praised nearly everything she liked. And, as the Muggles say, she was also a total nerd. Famously, she held the title of Chess Club Girls’ Champion in her third and fourth years (her friend Astoria Greengrass would dethrone her). Yet her real passion was History of Magic. Largely self-taught as a result of Professor Binns’ poor teaching, she gained some of the highest marks at both OWL and NEWT level.

Therefore, it comes as no surprise when she tells me that, in order to understand her, you must understand the history of the Bones. And to understand the Bones, you must know the Bonniers.

From Bologna, Italy, and of some Sephardi (Spanish and Portuguese) and more distant Ashkenazi (French) ancestry, the Bonnier family were ‘mostly’ pure-blood - having lost track long before they gave up caring. However, that wasn’t the most interesting thing about them. That honour went to the Bonniers’ extraordinary talent for magic. They had a knack for succeeding in whatever they put their mind to, be it charms or duelling or Herbology, that garnered them a reputation throughout Europe. Some say it was due to nefarious practices, but the truth was simple: once a Bonnier set to a task, it would be done.

Sadly, this didn’t seem true of Abramo Bonnier, the third youngest son, who came of age as the 20th century began to loom. Facing the prospect of mediocrity, not to mention unemployment and destitution, he and his young wife Chiara emigrated to Glasgow in 1890 and settled in the Gorbals area of south Glasgow. Wanting to carve out his own name, the couple became Abraham and Claire Bones. A year later, their son Steven was born and was sorted into Hufflepuff House in 1902.

Unlike his father, Steven would reclaim the Bonnier reputation for the Bones. An accomplished duellist by his early twenties, at the height of his fame he married muggle-born witch and recent Russian Jewish immigrant Amelia Isaacs, herself a talented potions master and intelligent scholar. The family then moved from the impoverished area to a ‘nicer’ area.

Their son John and his wife Miriam - both incredibly adept at charms – would ally with the Order in the First Wizarding War, as would their three children: Edgar, Amelia, and Oswin. The Bones family were known for their skill, their tenacity, and their loyalty, and were a boon to the Order of the Phoenix. Only Amelia and Oswin would survive the war.

Susan was born on the 14th of October 1979, during a lull in the violence. She was named not only for her aunt and paternal great-grandmother, but for her maternal great-grandmother. Shoshanna Cohen, renamed Susan upon immigrating to Britain, was a half-blood witch and Dutch-German Jew. She used her magic to transport those persecuted during the Holocaust to safer countries and, if necessary, then Oblivate their knowledge of magic. Though not able to save her husband, she rescued countless others. It was in this spirit of bravery and selflessness that Judith, her granddaughter and Oswin’s wife, sought to raise her own child.

Initially, Susan believed she took after Abramo. In her childhood, she showed little promise in much – as she herself recalls, she was an unassuming child.

“I think my earliest magical memory came quite late. It wasn’t until I came to Hogwarts that I truly began to come into my own.”

Like her housemate Hannah Abbott, Bones paid little attention to the Potter craze in her early years. Justin Finch-Fletchley took her to the Yule Ball, in a move that went from date to relationship very quickly. When I remind her, she blushes.

“Oh gosh, we were the worst,” she laughs. “How did anyone put up with us?”

Sadly, it didn’t last. With the onset of the Second Wizarding War, the family became hunted yet again. Amelia was the first to die in the summer of 1996. From the moment her family received the news, they lived on edge.

“I went around with rocks at the pit of my stomach,” Susan recalls. “I started to feel like every step I made would be wrong, that it would bring me closer to death.”

As a result, her grades in the first term plummeted – in spite of her best efforts. Her fear of death came to fruition in December of 1997, when an attack upon their home claimed her parents’ lives. Susan doesn’t speak of that day. Somehow, though she doesn’t know how herself, she survived. In the months she spent hiding, she came to embody everything the Bones had ever been: brave, loyal, utterly selfless, and unbelievably powerful.

In 2003, she trained to become professor of History of Magic at Hogwarts, qualifying in 2005 and officially ending Professor Binns’ century long tenure. Her appointment was met with quiet approval from many - but not from our dear friend, Ms Skeeter.

First came the fact that Susan was nineteen at the birth of her first child. Known to many, it was still cause to begin dragging the once revered Bones name through the mud. These claims were then bolstered by the ‘revelation’ that in their youth, Susan Bones and Hannah Abbott had shared a short, sweet love affair. Though she had spared Katie Bell and others her homophobia, she released it full force for Susan. In a stunningly offensive “exposé”, she concluded that the fact that Susan Bones wasn’t straight meant she was unfit to teach at Hogwarts.

To the casual reader, it seemed Skeeter was ripping the Bones name apart. It would be defended by Headmistress McGonagall. The matter of Susan’s children, she wrote, was “no problem to the staff of Hogwarts.” But to the subject of Susan’s bisexuality, McGonagall provided every wizarding publication with a list of Hogwarts’ LGBTQIA+ professors – past and present – finished with the words, “Hogwarts will always be there to those who need it. – Albus Dumbledore.”

Seen by wizarding Britain as a veritable mic-drop, the resulting uproar nearly pulled Skeeter under. Yet she remained afloat upon her boat, the vessel for her homophobic nonsense, sailing on a smooth sea of her own arrogance. No matter the squalls, Skeeter assured her readers that, due to her bisexuality and her being a young mother, the appointment of Susan Bones was an indication of foolhardiness, promiscuity, irresponsibility, and bad parenting. Lastly, it was the bringing of Hogwarts’ inevitable ruin.

Fifteen years later, no such thing has happened. A year after she began teaching, her husband Justin Finch-Fletchley, would become professor of Muggle studies – the first Muggleborn to do so in generations. Today, the family commute between their Glasgow home and Hogwarts via Portkey, mark the high holy days with Hogwarts’ Jewish students, and live. And like all Bones before them, they are excellent at it.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you liked this, kudos and comments are always appreciated!


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